The increasing prominence of violence in our society has led many social scientists in recent years to study the effect of media violence on children. Television programming with its heavy emphasis on interpersonal violence has been assigned a role by many both in inciting aggression and in teaching viewers specific techniques of aggressive behavior. A large body of both laboratory (Bandura, 1973) and field studies (Chaffee, 1972) now exist that support this contention. Among the most important project has been the Eron, Huesmann, Lefkowitz and Walder (1972) ten year longitudinal study that provided evidence of causal relation between boys' violence viewing and their later aggressiveness. The theory is that viewers imitate the behaviors of aggressive models with whom they identify (Bandura, 1973). However, the causal relation needs to be elaborated and the role of various parental and cognitive factors in mediating the modeling effect needs to be investigated. At this time we propose a three year longitudinal study of 300 first graders and 300 third graders. Data will be collected on the childrens aggressiveness, TV viewing habits, and cognitive skills; and on the parents aggressiveness and child rearing practices. In addition a subset of high violence viewers will be trained in certain cognitive skills that are predicted to lessen the modeling effect. By obtaining 3 waves of longitudinal data on children as young as the proposed subjects, and applying various causal analysis techniques, we will be able to test for the existence of the modeling effect during a period when it should be strongest, and will be able to determine how various parental and cognitive factors interact with the modeling of violence.